BLOG FIGHT: Why Do I Have to Hear So Much About the Knicks?

On Sunday, the Knicks snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by winning one against the Heat. Amar’e Stoudemire was reasonably inspired in his comeback from self-inflicted injury and Carmelo Anthony reminded everyone what "best pure scorer in the league" really means. Tomorrow, the series resumes. People are talking, especially on Twitter. Except with the Knicks, sometimes it can feel like they are the only NBA franchise that exists, or ever will exist. It’s a puzzling and at times maddening phenomenon. For some insight, I virtually attacked Jason Concepion,aka netw3rk, to ask him why New York has so much to say about such a mediocre team.

Bethlehem Shoals: Every night the Knicks play, my timeline is clogged with tweets, many from people I don’t necessarily think of as NBA fans, weighing in ecstatically on Steve Novak. I refuse to believe it’s pure irony, since I expect more of said big city than a joke that went stale about ten news cycles ago. And it can’t just be that Knicks supporters are the best fans on the human planet. Nor is it about New York creating, or being nothing more than the sum of, its own hype. Hearing too much about the Knicks seems to be the major downside of acknowledging that a lot of the smartest, most interesting people in America call New York home (something I am quite willing to do.) The Knicks are a fairly unexceptional team, which contrasts sharply with why I follow so many Knicks fans on Twitter. It’s like that oft-repeated thought: "New York is the most cosmopolitan and the most provincial city in the USA."

Netw3rk: Knick relevance in the decade of the intertubes has been solely as one of the great sports team cautionary tales. The last time the Knicks were relevant, I had a beeper. When last the Knicks were good I was, literally, a kid. I would say "Hey! the Knicks are good!" to my high school buddies (or whoever) and life was generally simple. Then, a long period of the Knicks not being good during which I, graduated college, growed up, got married, got a job and got acquainted with all the accoutrements of adulthood like trying to have health insurance and pay my student loans.

Maybe this gap is part of what drives seemingly smart people to wax lyrical on the thrills of Steve Novak pretending to don a belt. In this way tweeting "YEAH NOVAK!!!", or some such, is the closest I get to high-fiving my best friend in my mom’s den when I was 13. That’s my excuse for not knowing better, anyway.

Bethlehem Shoals: It makes sense that the Knicks would end up the team of eternal youth, or heavy nostalgia, since New York itself is perennially guilty of both counts. In a way, your approach (non-stop laughs) seems more tied to the bad old days of Isiah than the great lost days of Starks et al. Are you a self-hating Knicks fan?

Netw3rk: Self-hating is strong; self-questioning, maybe. I don’t think a reasonably self-aware person could have rooted for the Knicks over the last decade and not wondered if they couldn’t spend their free time in more productive and satisfying fashion. The humor is definitely an outgrowth of that, a coping mechanism. If I make funnier jokes about the team I follow than anyone else, then I have license to mock other teams. Many times I’ve envied your approach of aesthetic detachment vis-a-vis the NBA.

But, alas, it’s way too late. The Knicks set their hooks in me early before I understood what a mess they are and historically have been. I have a myriad of interests outside the New York Knicks. It’s just that talking about those two things give me an easily attainable and ridiculously stupid sort of pleasure. Even if the talking (or tweeting, times being what they are) is complaining.

Though I think you’re overlooking what an absurd figure Steve Novak cuts, loping across the Garden floor, aping another human being’s celebratory pantomime. That shit is special, Shoals.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 1/4/2014) and Privacy Policy (effective 1/4/2014).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Condé Nast.